Which is, in the handily present words of the Closing Ceremony’s Artistic Director James Hadley, “a building steeped in history and legend, a symbol of the endurance of its people.”

But here I am, drinking bottled water, nicely settled in a counterintuitive seat that tries too hard to accommodate me as I swing and slide about, and I am looking at the Maiden Tower. It’s right in front of me in the middle of the Olympic Stadium, and it looks pretty impressive.

The answers to the questions of what? and how? are soon gleaned. “It took 4 minutes to inflate the “Maiden Tower” and the “Flame Towers” says our media guide, which is also proving very useful as a makeshift fan for those wilting in the evening’s muggy heat.

Inflated. There’s a fleeting image here of a bouncy castle. Dispel it! This version appears to be faithful even unto the patina of age on its venerable stones.

As for the Flame towers - can’t see them anywhere. Still, I’m sure an answer will emerge...as it does when those patina-covered “walls” peel away to reveal the flaming modern architecture that now overlooks Baku’s city centre…

Banks of speakers that Spinal Tap wouldn’t turn their noses up at face the audience, the central units mimicking the curve of the stands.

All before us holds the promise of a stage-set before the players arrive.

The countdown to the show proper is conceived of as a series of numbers being woven and then emerging from tapestry. Never seen a carpet countdown before ..then comes the battle of the bands, old v new, traditional v rock..both playing the same traditional tune. Works well, you have to say..

And there is a terrific coup de theatre as the traditionally coloured extended skirts of the three main giant sculpture dancers slide up to reveal an under-skirt of contemporary design, which is in turn dragged into the central figure to reveal hundreds of similarly clad dancers who swarm out…

Aerial shots show artfully choreographed figures creating a series of thread-like mosaic designs, as if they have been shaken in a giant kaleidoscope…and a volley of colourful fireworks ends the section, the theme of which, as was clearly demonstrated, was the transformation of traditional forms by new energy..

It’s a cracking show, no question.

But is this a kind of facsimile Games ceremony, to go with a facsimile Games, as some would have it?

The entrance of the athletes militates against that idea. At any multi-sport event, athletes flow into the stadium like lifeblood. Without them the whole kaboosh is senseless, an expensive farrago. Without their engagement there is no meaning.

The earnest competition, the competition-in-earnest, of athletes here over the last two weeks - even British fencers who arrive thinking of the Games in terms of being a training jaunt ahead of the World Championships and end up busting a gut to beat the Italian favourites in the final of the men’s foil team - has a legitimacy which is independent of the other concerns which have been raised about these inaugural Games.

And there is a legitimacy too to the genuine helpfulness and aspirations of the volunteers who support any Games - mostly young, but not exclusively. This, and the kindness of strangers, has an enduring human value…

“The future is bright for Azerbaijan, the future is bright for the European Games…” maintains Patrick Hickey, President of the European Olympic Committees and the man without whom it is hard to think that this idea would have got off the ground on this particular ground.

He may be right.

But even as one applauds the quality, the vivacity of the spectacle witnessed in this stadium tonight, one has to wonder.

In terms of size, colour, expense, aspiration this was an Olympic Closing Ceremony in all but name, even though the same could not be said of the Games themselves.

It has been an evening rich in tradition, music, dancing. It has been a rich evening’s entertainment. But any subsequent host of these European Games would either have to be very rich too to match this sumptuous creation, or to make a London 2012 type decision not to try and out-Beijing Beijing 2008.

The problem may be that by setting the bar so high, other nations will be discouraged even from attempting to compete.

The other problem, of course, is that if Baku ever got the Olympics, for which they have already contended twice without any success, how would they follow this?